Von Sarajewo in die Welt und zurück: Globale Perspektiven auf den Ersten Weltkrieg

Das Attentat von Sarajewo vom 28. Juni 1914 bildete den Ausgangspunkt für den Ersten Weltkrieg. Von Beginn weg und für die nächsten vier Jahre nahm dieser ein globales Ausmass an. Der Vortrag wird deshalb versuchen, ausgehend von Sarajewo eine globale Perspektive auf einen Konflikt zu werfen, der schon sehr früh als Weltkrieg bezeichnet und später als Erster Weltkrieg bekannt wurde. Mehr Raum als üblich soll dabei den wichtigen Verflechtungen zwischen der europäischen und der aussereuropäischen Welt eingeräumt werden. Am Schluss wird der Vortrag wieder zur Geschichte der bosnischen Hauptstadt zurückkehren.

Controversy Total War

Total war is a controversial term used in the past by politicians, publicists and military officers as well as by computer specialists and academics in the present. Since its conception by French politicians during the First World War in a time of severe crisis (1916/17), it has become a term used by historians and other academics to cover a wide array of elements when looking at wars of the past. A real total war was and is impossible. Elements of total war – total war aims, total methods of warfare, total mobilization and total control – can, however, be identified and can serve as a useful tool for further transnational research on war.

«…die Schweiz mobilisiert; der Weltkrieg ist da!»: Gedanken zu Historiographie und Narrativen vom «Grossen Krieg» zwischen 1914 und 2014

Auf dem Hintergrund der Tatsache, dass sich die Termine für Spezialisten der Geschichte des Ersten Weltkrieges im Jahr 2014 kaum mehr zählen lassen, versucht der vorliegende Vortrag danach zu fragen, wo die Wissenschaft und die Öffentlichkeit heute mit den Ereignissen der Jahre 1914-1918 umgehen, welche Perspektiven sich aufgetan haben, beziehungsweise sich hoffentlich in der Zeit, die kommen wird, noch auftun werden. Diese Perspektiven der Gegenwart sollen dabei mit der Historiographie und den Narrativen vom «Grossen Krieg» in den letzten 100 Jahren verknüpft werden.

Imperialismustheorien und Geschichte: Eine empirische Annäherung

For decades, if not centuries, the term imperialism has been used in manifold and ambivalent ways. Some historians, such as William Hancock, therefore shied away from using it in their texts, while others set up theories to explain as much as possible with regard to the European expansion into the non-European world – and in some cases even beyond. Taking the three cases of German colonial policy before 1890, the granting of “responsible government” to the so-called British dominions and the expansion of British power in South Asia from the mid-eighteenth century to 1914, this article seeks to show to what extent a knowledge of both older and more recent theories of imperialism can still be useful for empirical research in the humanities and the social sciences.

Gallipoli: Myths and Memories in a transnational perspective

The battle of Gallipoli as it is known in Europe and South Asia or the battle of Çannakkale as it is known in modern Turkey was a seminal battle for many nations, not because it was decisive for the course of the war, but because it played a central role in regard to memory of the First World War in many nations. Based on photographic evidence and research by colleagues from many countries this contribution will focus in a transnational perspective on the participation of British, Indian, Australian and New Zealand troops in the campaign and especially on myths and memories on the side of the Entente from 1916 onwards.

A Word. Palaver and Its Transferal Residues

The word 'palaver' is colloquially associated with useless verbiage and the nuisance of a tediously long, aimless and superfluous debate. At the same time, it insinuates an uncivilized culture of discourse beyond reason. Thus it appears to be of vaguely exotic origin but still firmly set in the European lexicon. Yet behind this contemporary meaning there lies a long history of linguistic and cultural transfers which is encased in a context of different usages of language and their intersections. By tracing the usage and semantics of 'palaver' in various encyclopaedias, glossaries and dictionaries of English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish, the following article explores the rich history of this word. Moreover, it also regards the travelling semantics of the term 'palaver' as a process of cultural transfer that can be likened to the microcellular workings of a (retro)virus. Viral reproduction and evolution work through processes of transfer that enable the alteration of the host to adjust it to the replication and reproduction of the virus. In some cases, these processes also allow for the mutation or modification of the virus, making it suitable for transfer from one host to another. The virus is thus offered here as a vital model for cultural transfer: It not only encompasses the necessary adoption and adaption of contents or objects of cultural transfer in different contexts. It contributes to a conceptual understanding of the transferal residue that the transferred content is endowed with by its diversifying contexts. This model thereby surpasses an understanding of cultural transfer as literal translation or transmission: it conceptualizes cultural transfer as an agent of evolutionary processes, allowing for mutational effects of transfer as endowment.